Do TV & Radio work for small business? How to measure broadcast media

The more difficult question to answer is, of course, HOW do I determine if broadcast media is working for me?

This isn’t 1950 with 3 TV stations. You have to generate interest before you can generate a lead

Ok, one more question, what is the goal of your broadcast media? Go ahead. Take a second to answer that question.

To generate leads and grow your business, right!?

Actually…
No.

This isn’t 1950 with 3 television channels and a captive audience. If your goal with a TV ad (by itself) is to generate a bunch of phone calls or walk-in traffic to your business then you’re shooting for the stars.

The goal of broadcast media is to generate interest.

Hopefully enough interest to get them online visiting your website or searching for your business and what you do.

From there, it’s up to your internet strategy to take over because the TV ad did its job.

This presents 2 massive shifts in the way people market using broadcast media.

Your message to pique curiosity and generate interest is MUCH different than one to sell a product. A “direct-response” TV or radio ad may focus on a special offer or discount. One that is just designed to generate interest instead focuses on what you need to do to get people to take the next step.

You can now track the performance of your broadcast media to probably the highest degree of accuracy ever.

Don’t get me wrong, TV ads that market Black Friday Specials, discounts, coupons and offers absolutely can work assuming a few criteria are met.

People know your business already. In other words, they trust you.

People know where you are. They know how to find your business if it’s retail or how to get a hold of you for service.

If those 2 criteria aren’t met, they’re going to either ignore you or do additional research.

Guess where they are going to do additional research?
Online.

Generating Interest Not Leads

Studies show that up to 31% of Americans browse the internet WHILE watching TV.

The current way 1/3 of Americans watch TV

So let’s put this in perspective.

Most people watch TV at night when your office is closed.

About 1 in 3 do so with an iPad, laptop, or other internet-enabled device at their fingertips ready to do further research on things that catch their attention.

Which means for 15-60 seconds you have a potentially captive audience primed to learn more about your business, products and services.

But…

Only if your ad is more interesting than the one that came on 30 seconds earlier and the one that comes on 30 seconds later.

And once they find your website, they must be engaged enough to stay on your site long enough to fill out a contact form.

Remember, it’s after hours so if your goal is to get them to call you the next day when you are open to generate a “lead”, best of luck. That’s a much harder task.

Tracking Broadcast Media

The 2nd major advantage of redefining your goal to Generate Interest instead of a Lead is now we can track the impact of the ad…

We can track visits to targeted landing pages and the number of online searches for your business before, during, and after your ads are running.

We can break it into the time of day or segment the months when the ads are running and when they aren’t.

How accurately can you track broadcast media?

First off, how accurately can you track it now? Not very well, huh?
So any tracking would be a step in the right direction, right?

In one market, I was able to see a 135% increase in branded searches sustained over several months while running a TV campaign compared to without running any TV ads.

Additionally, the low performing month was during the normal seasonal peak and the increased search months were during slower times of the year. So the results were actually even more drastic than the 135% increase we measured.

Now are you ready for the scary part?The data we gathered wasn’t for our client’s TV campaign. It was for his competitor’s TV commercials.

Get your competitors to pay for your marketing

Let that digest for a second. We can watch a TV ad that your competitor has spent thousands or 10’s of thousands marketing and not only measure it’s impact, but also get into the middle of the process.

In other words, when the TV watcher types “competitor” into Google, we can pop-up and cut them off at the pass.

Are you doing this right now? If not, hopefully no one else is doing this to you.

To your broadcast media success, Bryan

P.S. There’s a reason my team only works with 1 business per market and won’t take on direct competitors as clients. What we learn about your market is just too valuable to get into the hands of your competitors. So take 2 minutes, get in touch with my team, and take control of your internet marketing before you waste another dollar on untested methods that you still aren’t sure are working.